Related Stories

Lower life expectancy, rising levels of cancers and common sexual problems have created a crisis in men's health and prompted calls for health authorities to get serious about male medicine.

Men die younger than women and from preventable causes, they are more reluctant to talk about their health and sexual problems and they put off seeing their doctor, said experts at the start of the first International Men's Health Week.

"Men's health is a global problem that requires global solutions," said Professor Siegfried Meryn, the president of the International Society for Men's Health (ISMH) in Vienna, Austria. "Men are not trained to manage their own body or their own health."

Figures suggest that in some ways men's health is no better than it was 30 years ago. They are six times more likely to be killed in car accidents, and have a suicide rate that is considerably higher than women's.

ISMH and other men's health groups around the globe are calling on national and international institutions to develop health policies and services to meet men's needs and for better training of doctors to treat male health and sexual problems.

"We are in the decade of gender medicine," said Meryn, a professor of medicine at the Medical University of Vienna. The problem, he said, begins in childhood when girls are encouraged to take care of themselves and others while boys are advised 'to be strong'.

So while women seek medical advice as soon as they have a health problem, men tend to ignore it and by the time they do get help - usually because of the prompting of their wives or partners - the condition can be serious.

Health services and doctors have also been slow to respond to male health needs and haven't been reaching men in public health campaigns, he added. Just as doctors would not approach a 70-year-old the same way they would a toddler, health problems in men and women must also be handled differently.

"We have to approach the public by promoting information that is specifically tailored to the gender," said Meryn. "You have to have different content, different wording and different pictures."

Symptoms for common diseases are different in men and women and reactions to medications can also vary between the sexes.

Although erectile dysfunction, which affects an estimated 5% of 40 year-olds and 25% of men over 75, is an early marker for coronary artery disease, diabetes and hypertension, the sensitive subject is seldom discussed in the doctor's office.

"The patient is not speaking about it and the doctor is not asking about it. It is incredible in the year 2003," he said.